A family with members all over the country gathers on the Seacoast to trace its 17th century roots on the Isles of Shoals.

The earliest known record of Phillip Babb dates back nearly 360 years to 1652. By the following year, Babb was documented living on the Isles of Shoals, where he mostly remained until his death in 1671. He was a man of many trades—a fisherman, butcher, constable, merchant and tavern keeper—and he came to own much of what is now known as Appledore Island (it was then called Hog Island). 

By all accounts, Phillip Babb was a prominent and colorful figure. He was said to search frequently for buried treasures supposedly left on the island by pirates. And, even after he died, legends tell of his menacing ghost prowling the isles with a butcher knife. Famed poet Celia Thaxter, who grew up on the Isles of Shoals in the mid 1800s, told stories of the treasure-hunting Babb and his haunting spirit.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Babb’s descendents through the centuries have been equally colorful. 

“Something that we take great pride in is being rabble-rousers,” said Daniel Babb, a direct descendent of Phillip. “Our family has been kicked out of a lot of places, and we kind of take joy in that,” he added with a laugh.

Daniel and a crew of nearly 50 other Babb descendents gathered on the Seacoast in late June for a family reunion. They came from all over the United States—Texas, Alabama, North Carolina, Pennsylvania—as well as a few from overseas. 

“I got the award for coming the farthest,” announced Ann Charles Babb, who lives in Belgium.

Staying at the Ale House Inn in Portsmouth, the Babb crew visited several sites where their ancestors lived and worked, including New Castle, Greenland, Kittery and York. On June 23, they traveled to Star Island and then, by a small boat that made several distressing trips across choppy Atlantic waters, to Appledore. At each location, Daniel Babb told stories connecting the site to their family roots. 

In many ways, the Babbs’ expanding narrative of their own family story mirrors the broader narrative of America. The Babbs were here more than a century before the nation declared its independence, and some of them fought in the Revolution. They were lawmen and lawbreakers. They were landowners and entrepreneurs. They were mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers. And as America grew, so did they, spreading across the country and beyond.  

The Babb Family Association has been studying their genealogy for more than two decades. The late Jean Alice Sargent, a native of Amesbury, Mass., co-founded the group in 1989 along with Ina Babb Mansur. Initially inspired to learn more about Babb’s Bridge in Windham, Maine, the two collected thousands of documents related to the family. 

Sargent died in her Maryland home in January at age 90. On June 23, her relatives scattered her ashes on Appledore Island, near where Phillip Babb’s house once stood and in view of a cove that contains “Babb Rock.”

Daniel Babb, who lives in Dallas, is now in the process of digitizing Sargent’s vast collection of papers and continuing her genealogical studies. Through DNA testing, he recently linked the family to a line of Babbs in Newfoundland, Canada. He’s now trying to trace the family roots back to England.“(Sargent and Mansur) really did the hard work of making most of these connections,” Daniel Babb said. “I’m trying to make one last connection to England, which the records just simply don’t exist for. We hope to find something in a library one day, but in the meantime, DNA is our best hope.”

The Babb Family Association now has about 170 members. Many of them meet for destination reunions every two or three years, sometimes traveling thousands of miles to visit places where the family has left its imprint. Not every family goes to such lengths to connect with its roots. But for the Babbs, family history has become a bit of an obsession. By learning about their ancestry, they learn more about themselves, as well.

“We are because of what they have been,” said Cherida Coleman, who came all the way from Birmingham, England, for the reunion. “It is a very addictive hobby. The more you know, the more you want to know, and you just won’t let go.”

Coleman once lived in Devon, England, which is where the Babbs believe their family line originated. She offered a brief speculative family history that reaches back more than 1,000 years. In the year 1001, she said, Devon was invaded by Saxons, one of whom was a man named Babba (there’s an area of Devon called Babbacombe). His followers settled near the River Teign.

“The family became very powerful in Devon, and when things were going wrong and we were getting a little bit too powerful, we kept changing from Royalist to Protestant to Catholic. We just kept changing fences, and I think that’s why the family started splitting up. Some went to other areas of England, but I think that some of them definitely came over to Maine,” Coleman said. “That’s my excuse for coming.”

The Babbs went to Devon for a reunion in 2009. By visiting the Isles of Shoals in 2011, they have theoretically followed their family’s path to America. 

New Hampshire author Julia Older has written about Phillip Babb in her “Isles of Shoals Trilogy.” She read from some of her work during a presentation for the Babb family at Star Island, illustrating his early influence in the area.

“Babb pretty much left his mark on everything to do with the Shoals,” Older said.

Phillip Babb had five sons who gradually spread across the Seacoast. Records show that Sampson Babb, who lived in New Castle, petitioned against a proposed bridge in 1725 that would have stretched from Kittery to what is now the Great Island Common (this was roughly two centuries before Memorial Bridge was constructed). Sampson feared the bridge would make it difficult for fishermen to navigate the Piscataqua River, and his petition to deny it was successful. 

But some of the Babb stories are less triumphant. Phillip Babb’s third son Philip and his future wife Lydia, who lived in York, were charged with fornication in 1691 and sentenced to each receive seven lashes or pay 40 shillings (which they chose is unknown).

Members of the Babb Family Association seem to take equal pride in all their ancestors. There was Theodore Babb, who, according to Daniel, “actually got abducted by Comanche Indians and lived with them for several years and eventually became an advocate for them even though they had slaughtered his parents.”

Then there was Kroger Babb—perhaps the most famous of all 20th century Babbs—a movie producer who brought traveling exploitation films around the nation in the 1940s, most of them containing lewd content that he billed as sexual hygiene films. His biggest success was “Mom and Dad,” which included a live childbirth scene and is now included in the National Film Registry. 

“He filled movie house after movie house,” Daniel said. “He ran that movie for 20 years, I believe, through probably every small town in America. They say he actually sold more tickets than ‘Star Wars.’”

It’s likely that any modern family with deep roots in America could dig up a similarly diverse collection of ancestors. But not every family goes to the trouble. Lynn Babb, of North Carolina, said he has been surprised to learn about the motley array of characters who have helped shape the family over the years.

“I didn’t know there were so many of us,” Lynn said. “I didn’t know there was such a variety of people, like outlaws.”

Nancy Babb Keeble, of Alabama, said her grandfather was evasive about his past, which led her father to seek information about the family history.

“I think he wanted to know why the family was so strange,” she said to uproarious laughter from her relatives.

“The fact that we have such colorful ancestors really makes it fun to talk about,” Daniel added. 

The Babbs have not yet decided where they’ll go next. Maybe to Greeneville, Tenn., where the family is attempting to restore an old log home built in 1785. Seth Babb, who served in the Revolution and was at the Siege of Yorktown, originally lived in the house. Seth was Lynn Babb’s great-great-grandfather, and the next three generations of his family were born there.    

But maybe they’ll go someplace else. It would probably be difficult to find a corner of the country where no Babb has set foot. In that sense, America is inseparable from the Babbs, as it remains inseparable from every American family.